This is a long review, I tried to touch upon everything to answer the concerns I've seen on Cruise Critic. We just returned from a fabulous cruise aboard the Carnival Legend 5/13/07-5/20/07. We are 2 adults in our 50's and 60's. We booked our cruise direct through Carnival by phone. This was our 4th cruise with Carnival. We have cruised the western Caribbean on 2 previous occasions although Belize and Costa Maya were new ports for us. We made our own airline arrangements through Delta from New York to Tampa 2 days before the cruise (Friday) We let Carnival make the hotel arrangements as we have found you get a 4 star hotel at a group discount rate, and we have always been very pleased. We did not have transfers from the airport through carnival, we used taxi's. We arrived in Tampa about 3:00pm and took a taxi to the Embassy Suites Downtown Convention Center. (about a 15 minute ride-cost 20:00 with tip) The hotel was great. We paid about $170 a night for a huge suite. They have a beautiful pool and restaurant. They have "managers reception" every night from 5:30pm-7:30pm. FREE DRINKS!! For 2 hours along with "munchies" (cheese, crackers, chips and salsa, veggies and dip) There is a free breakfast all morning in the hotel which was more like a breakfast buffet on the ship (eggs cooked to order, cereals, bread and muffins, pancakes and waffles, bacon, sausage and more) This hotel is only ½ mile from the port and you can see the ships from the hotel. There is a trolley in front of the hotel that goes throughout downtown Tampa for $4:00 unlimited rides for 1 day. We went to the Florida Aquarium (very nice and worth the money - a lot of kids activities including swimming in the kiddie water park ). We also went to see the Merchant Marine ship American Victory docked at the port (right behind the Aquarium) This is supposed to be a museum ship full of exhibits etc. What it actually is ....a dirty old tin can, rusty, VERY HOT with a ton of stale air. You wander through alone and see a bunch of dirty sleep quarters with signs on the door as to what room it was (these were the exhibits) - waste of time and money We did see the Carnival Inspiration which left from the port on Sat.

On Sun we had a short ride from the hotel to the pier at 10:45am (we know to get there early) There was already about 30 people on line when we arrived. We were processed fast and sent to an area to wait to board. We waited about 25 minutes. They were processing people very fast and the "sitting area" appeared to have about 150 seats so everyone could wait comfortably. We were let on the ship about 11:30am. Our room 4232 was in the back of the ship, extended balcony. It was as wide as our previous balconies on the Victory and Triumph but extended quite a bit outward giving you a lot more room. There were 2 chairs, 1 lounger, and a table on the balcony with room to spare. The ships dEcor is a bit overdone but still nice. We found it harder to navigate then the Triumph and Victory. The hallways to the cabins are a bit "maze like". The ship was clean and appeared to be in good repair. Our room was great - this was our first cabin off the back of the boat and we weren't sure we would like it but we did. You do get to see the back of the ship, both sides (with a side cabin you can only see one side). There was no "through traffic" and no cabins across from us so there was no noise from guests in the halls at all hours. Now for the not so good stuff about the aft cabin... You do hear the engines running all the time (we didn't mind, it was like one of those white noise machines) There was also some vibration (slight but always there) when the engines were running. We were right above the dining room and they had singing and dancing waiters every night so you could hear the singing and banging below for about 10 minutes at 7:15pm (early seating) and about 9:30pm (late seating). We had early seating dinner (5:45 pm), food and service was excellent. The maitre'd talked and sang every dinner and had the waiters singing and dancing in the dining room. It was nice one or two nights but every night was a little much. The waiters at tables where people weren't done eating had to dodge the other waiters dancing around the tables to serve dessert. It made the dinner rather long and you found yourself dreading the end of dinner unless you ate really fast and ducked out before the singing started. Monday was "at sea", we saw a lot of gambling on the ship in the casino and saw A LOT of people winning on slots and video poker. Winning a couple of hundred on the machines was not unusual during the cruise.

For going ashore- The islands and Mexico do not use daylight savings time so ship time is 1 hour later than port time. First stop was Cayman Islands where you tender in from the anchored boat. Tendering was fast and we had no problem getting off or back to the boat. They are using a new pier next to the old one so if you've been here before, it looks different. We took a private tour (Moby Dick) to snorkel and swim with the stingrays. Great excursion $35.00 if you reserve online and $40.00 each if you just walk up to them at the pier. We left Cayman Islands promptly at 4:00pm. At about 5:15pm, the captain came on the loudspeaker and said there was a life threatening medical emergency on the boat and we were turning around and rushing back to the Cayman Islands to get the man medical care. I don't know how fast we were going but you could feel the speed was a lot faster than usual. As we got closer to Cayman Islands a speedboat met the ship and they transferred the man to the speed boat and we were then again on our way to Cozumel. The captain did say we would be arriving an hour later in Cozumel but we would stay an hour later in Cozumel. There is a dock in Cozumel now. We did through Island Marketing an all inclusive package at Nachi Cocam beach. Great day and beach. There were only about 40 people there. Free lounge chair and grass huts on the beach for shade, a pool, open bar for all drinks. Since they had so few people instead of a free buffet, they just let us order from the menu whatever we wanted for free. This was $49.00 each. Taxi to the beach $15.00 for up to 4 people so if you can find 2 other people to share the cab you can split the fare. A couple from cruise critic shared the cab with us. Next stop Belize which is also a tender port. You anchor out much farther than you do in the Cayman Island. We took the Xunantunich Mayan ruins tour through Carnival. They get you off the ship fast because it is a long excursion (7 hours) and it fills the entire day in Belize. There is a LONG bus ride through Belize to get to the ruins. Nice air conditioned bus. The ride was 2 hours and the ruins are within ½ mile from Guatemala. You get out of the bus and take a primitive raft across a small river. They do take everyone by van about a mile uphill to the start of the ruins. There is a bathroom there (bring toilet paper, just like Mexico, there is never any toilet paper) We did see soldiers all around with M-16's and side arm pistols. They were hidden all over the ruin site. There is A LOT of walking uphill that was difficult and people with breathing problems did have some trouble getting up the hill. We climbed the pyramid which was scary but not that hard. It was humid and quite buggy. We found out the soldiers were there to protect us. Gangs have come in from Guatemala (½ mile away) and robbed tourists visiting the site so they were there to make sure no one bothered us. I'm not sure I would have done this tour had I known of the danger From the amount of soldiers and weapons we saw, I would guess there was enough danger to warrant it. The ruins were otherwise great as was our guide. We stopped at a restaurant and had a free meal on the way back. (Chicken, rice dish, and broccoli, punch to drink and no dessert.) It was after 5:00pm when we got back so the ship had to wait for us (they don't wait if you are on a private tour) There was NO time for shopping even for a few souvenirs at the port. Next stop Costa Maya. Ship pulls up to a dock here so you walk off. It is a VERY long dock in Costa Maya - they did have a open van to drive people the length of the dock if you didn't want to walk. We did the Jungle beach break through Carnival. It was not a great tour and we would not do it again. At the pier they have a pool, bars and beach so you don't have to go to another beach on a tour. Uvero beach was rocky, had a lot of grass mixed in the sand under the water. They did have paddle boat and kayaks that were free to use. The had loungers and grass huts on the beach for shade. There was an open bar but I doubt there was any alcohol in the drinks. You could probably drink 10 of them and still pass a breathalyzer test. There were pesty vendors on the beach. Read more